Baby Jar Gifts

When I transitioned my second child to jarred baby food, it killed me to just throw away the beautiful glass jars that it came in!  After seeing how much glass jars cost, I figured I could certainly find another use for them (after putting them through the dishwasher first, of course).  

It was around the time of Valentine's Day and I decided put together little treat jars for my daughters' teachers, as well as my coworkers.  

I had my husband drill a hole in the top of each jar top.  I then spray painted the tops red and filled each jar with M&Ms.  I created a label for the jars (below) and adhered them to each jar.   

Finally, I made the lollipop flowers, using the tutorial provided by Skip To My Lou.  I didn't use the floral tape for the leaves, but rather just cut strips of green paper, glued the ends, and wrote the name of the recipient.  When I finished them all, I popped a lollipop in the whole of each jar top and...tada....a cute little gift! 

Homemade Play Dough

It's been a long while since I've posted anything.  However, I've been keeping up with my obsession of browsing other crafting blogs and my list of crafts to try is getting forever long.  With a second baby on the way in five weeks, I better get my butt in gear because I don't foresee myself having a ton of time with two little munchkins just eighteen months apart! 

I subscribe to Skip To My Lou, as she always has a lot of great postings.  Today she posted a recipe from Homemade By Jill for homemade play dough.  I was so excited because over the weekend I brought out the play dough for my seventeen month old for the first time ever.  She seemed to like it, but it tends to crumble a bit.  My mother-in-law claims that homemade play dough has a much better consistency and does not crumble.  Not to mention...it's completely edible!  My daughter would probably love to help make the play dough and it could make a good little gift for the kids in her class at school!  Click on the image below to link to the homemade play dough tutorial! 

ABC's of Me

I wanted to make a quick (and easy) scrapbook to compile some pictures throughout my daughter's first year and give them to relatives as gifts during Christmas. Artscow.com often has promotions for 'free' 8"x8" 20 page photobooks ($8 for shipping) so I typically try to cash in when those offers come around. They were such a

hit, I think I will have to do them each year!

Below are the pages I created for Natalee's "ABC's of Me" photobook (click on each picture to view a larger version). I had to get creative with some of the letters, such as "x" and "u" but if you Google "words that start with..." you can get a lot of ideas (if you're in a jam). Beneath the book I have a free template you can download.

Now for the template freebie (.psd file). Enjoy! Please post links to your "ABC's of Me" pages! I would love to see what other people come up with. Download here or click on image below.

Baby Fever

It seems like there is another baby boom going on this year! I think my husband and I counted fifteen (or more) of our friends that are having babies this year, including us. It is a very exciting time for so many families. Ironically, most of the babies are GIRLS! As the mother of a 16 month old girl, and another girl due in two months, it is so exciting to know that many of our close friends will also have girls. There is nothing sweeter than seeing the bond between a baby girl and her father.

While baby registries are always so fun to peruse, I figure that I will leave those gift ideas for the not-so crafty. :) I have some cute ideas (many of which I have not yet executed) but with many baby showers approaching, I plan to finally accomplish over the next couple of months, so stay tuned!

While planning a coworker's baby shower (for her baby girl), I made this diaper cake. Not only will it be a useful gift for the proud parents, it will also double as a beautiful center piece for the shower.

This was the first diaper cake I'd ever made, so I plan to come up with some more creative ways to jazz up future cakes.

Ingredients for this cake:

• Cardboard cake circle (can be purchased in cake making section of a craft store - I went with the 16" size but you can choose a smaller size)
• Cake doily or lace
• Wooden dow rods (12" or longer, depending on how high you anticipate your cake to be)
  
• Rubberbands
  
• Ribbon
• Diapers (about a case)
  
• Glue gun (optional)
  
• Any other decorative accessories (stuffed animals, pacifiers, bottles, bibs, etc.)
  

1. I first rolled five to six diapers and put a rubber band around each group. You can rubber band each diaper individually, but this would be more time consuming.
   
2. Once all of the diapers are rolled, you may need to rearrange the number in each group so that you can stack them in a tiered formation.
   
3. Once you have the basic form of the cake developed, you can put it all together.
   
4. I purchased white cardboard cake rounds so I didn't have to cover them (although you could cover them with cute fabric). I then adhered the lace to the cake round with a glue gun.
5. I put the first layer of diapers on the cake round, trying not to leave much excess space around the edges.
   
6. I then stacked the second layer and inserted the wooden rods so that the first layer and second layer were 'connected.' (This will make it easier to transport).
   
7. I continued this process to the top layer, ensuring that all layers have wooden rods running through the diaper rolls for one or two layers so that you don't have to worry about a massive landslide of diapers.
   
8. I put a stuffed animal in the center of the top layer (rather than another roll of diapers) to add a little bit of flare. You could us anything for the top layer...onesies, bottles, etc.
   
9. Once the entire cake was stacked, I wrapped thick ribbon around each layer, using a glue gun to keep it tight. You can use additional ribbon, bows, or any other accessories to jazz it up.
   
10. Feel free to stuff other goodies in the ribbon and diapers - bibs, onesies, socks, burp clothes, bottles, baby spoons, etc. (perhaps some of these things could be retrieved from the recipient's registry).

Use your imagination! I will post some pics of additional cakes I make, as I am sure there will be many in the next six months!

Teacher Appreciation Week

This week is Teacher Appreciation week - a time to show teachers (and/or daycare providers, administrators, etc.) just how grateful you are for all that they do for your children.

There are quite a few websites you can go to in order to get ideas of just how to show your appreciation. I tend to go the 'handmade' route when giving gifts, so this year I decided to make chocolate covered pretzels and brownies for my daughter's daycare providers. I hope they like chocolate...but what do they expect from a mom who is 8 months pregnant?

I used two different 'recipes' to make the chocolate covering on the pretzels.

(1) Wilton Candy Melts

I went to Wal-Mart and saw Wilton Candy Melts for $3.25 (usually much more expensive at craft stores such as Joann and Michaels). I thought I would give them a try since their sole purpose for existence is to melt, mold, and harden.

Melting:

• 12 ounce bag of Wilton Candy Melts
• Pour the bag of Candy Melts into microwavable bowl
• Microwave for 2 minutes at half power (power 5 on my microwave)
• Mix
• Microwave for another 25 seconds at half power

After melting the chocolate, I used a silicone scraper to coat pretzels rods with chocolate and placed them on a cookie sheet covered with wax paper. A 10 ounce bag of pretzel rods contains about 27 rods but you have to remember that some of them will be broken. I bought two bags of rods and found that the 12 ounce bag of Wilton Candy Melts made about 30 rods. I sprinkled pecans on half of the pretzels and then put them in the fridge for about 15 minutes.

The pretzel rods turned out really well - the chocolate hardened like a charm and didn't get soft after sitting at room temperature.

(2) Nestle Morsels

A recipe I retrieved online was to use semi-sweet morsels and shortening as the chocolate dipping. The recipe was 12 ounce bag of morsels and 1 tablespoon of shortening.

Melting:

• Combine 12 ounce bag of morsels and 1 tablespoon of shortening in microwavable bowl
• Microwave at half power (power 5 on my microwave) for 1 minute
• Mix
• Microwave at half power for another 30 seconds, or as needed.

After melting the chocolate, I dipped Snyders Olde Tyme pretzels (regular pretzels) into the chocolate with a pair of tongs. After being dipped, I tapped the pretzel gently (holding it with tongs) to remove excess chocolate. I placed them on a cookie sheet covered with wax paper and put them in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

While the pretzels covered easily with the chocolate, the chocolate seemed to soften after being set out at room temperature...perhaps it was the shortening? In the future, I will stick to the Wilton Candy Melts.

I put the pretzels in decorative plastic bags and put them in a basket that I decorated with flowers and ribbon for my daughter's two daycare providers. My husband said they would think the pretzels and brownies in the basket were store bought, so I made a little tag stating that they were handmade (by my daughter). I used one of the many fonts I downloaded from Kevin and Amanda.

Shockingly enough, I was unable to find Teacher Appreciation Day greeting cards. So, I decided to take some blank cards and make my own using this Word Art I created. I printed it out on colored paper and glued it onto the front of a blank card. Feel free to download here:

For the administrators and a few other people who work closely with my daughter, I put together bags with some of the chocolate covered pretzels and brownies. I decorated the bags with a little name tag for each, and a little flower to dress it up.

Hope these give you some ideas for future gifts!

Gift for Fellow Crafter

As we get older, it seems to be such a struggle to figure out what to give friends or family members as gifts.  Of course,  handmade gifts are always super special to the recipient.  However, sometimes LEARNING a craft can be a wonderful gift as well!

This year for my mom's birthday I signed us both up for jewelry-making class at Joann Fabric.  I had to check around at several stores, as they all seem to offer slightly different classes and schedules.  If you search for the location of a specific store location, you can download their class schedule online, which is quite convenient.  In my experience, the larger "superstores" offer a wider variety of classes and times than the smaller stores. 

Michaels also offers classes, but at the time I called them, they only were offering a scrapbooking and cake decorating class.  Unlike Joann, they do not offer their class schedule online. 

I made a card for my mom stating what the gift was (obviously I had to check with her before booking the class to ensure she was available).  I definitely could have been more creative with the card, but was pressed for time.  

With the card, I framed a picture of my mom and my daughter, so I could actually give her something tangible (and somewhat sentimental). 

She loved the gift and we both look forward to spending time together learning how to make jewelry! 

Holiday Gifts

It is always a struggle to figure out what to give teachers and classmates for holiday celebrations (with budget an obvious concern).  There are a total of ten children in my daughter's daycare class (nine plus her) so I felt I could spend a little more on each child without spending too much total.  Since they are ages one to two, I didn't really want to get candy or sweets to put in their Valentine's bag, so I decided to go to the Dollar Store to buy stuffed animals (can be found cheap at Michael's, Target $1 spot, Dollar Store, etc).  I made personalized Valentines and had them printed as a 4x6 photo and put them in an envelope, then wrapped the cards around each of the stuffed animals' neck by punching holes in the envelope and tying ribbon through it.  They turned out very cute - the teachers raved about how much the kids would love them. 

Below is the Valentine I made, and at about 15 cents each, it's not that much more expensive than the generic ones you buy in the stores:

For the teachers, I made truffles and put them in a candy box (purchased a a package of 1/2 pound candy boxes at Michaels), which fit about six truffles.  I then put a personalized label on the front of each and tied it with a bow to jazz it up a bit.  

Below is the label I made: